William Whiting Borden

===Yale===
Borden entered [[Yale University]] in 1905, and with the encouragement of young classics tutor [[Henry Burt Wright]], Borden began daily prayer groups that within two years reached the entire university from the freshman class to the senior.<ref>Taylor, 97-98. Borden noted that one voluntary meeting, held in [[Dwight Hall at Yale|Dwight Hall]] in 1906, perhaps 500 students, some of them standing, heard a sermon by [[Robert Elliott Speer]], who was secretary of the [[Presbyterian World Mission|American Presbyterian Mission]] and an authority on world missions.</ref> At a 1906 [[Student Volunteer Movement]] convention in [[Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville]], [[Samuel Marinus Zwemer]], "a man with a map," impressed Borden with his emphasis on the open doors for evangelizing the Muslim world.<ref>Taylor, 106-08.</ref>

Borden had a charismatic personality, was sociable, athletic, and fun loving but also was an intense and hardworking natural leader. At Yale, he was elected president of [[Phi Beta Kappa]] and was active in several collegiate sports, especially wrestling and crew.  He also became the master of his own [[sailing yacht]]. Borden refused to join a fraternity fearing "it might set him apart from the body of the class," but he was elected to the [[Elihu (secret society)|Elihu]] society.<ref>Taylor, 143, 145, 148-49, 157.</ref> Though an opponent of [[liberal Christianity]], Borden was [[ecumenical]] in spirit. With his own money, he funded a New Haven [[Inner mission|rescue mission]] and there did personal work himself. One well-traveled English visitor, when asked what had most impressed him about America, is said to have replied, "The sight of that young millionaire kneeling with his arm around a 'bum' in the Yale Hope Mission."<ref>Taylor, 223.</ref>